Cinders and Ashes (Cavendish Mysteries 2)

After quietly bidding everyone a good night, she quietly left the room.

As she trudged to her room, Amelia consoled herself with the fact that Sebastian was now as safe as anyone could be. He had the security and physical protection of his brothers and Peter surrounding him, and was on familiar ground. She had told them what they needed to know to give them a start in the search for information. Without doubt, the family would move heaven and earth to help Sebastian search for the truth behind his kidnap, and attempted murder. She would help them in any way she could. She just couldn’t tell them everything.

Carefully closing the door behind her, Amelia moved across the dusty room, shivering as the cooler air swept over her. Snatching up the blanket from the bed, she wrapped it around herself and lay upon the bed, a picture of desolate misery. The very last thing she wanted to do was cause the family to despise her. While she could fully understand, and indeed admire Isobel for her family loyalty, the memory of that small smile hurt deeply. She briefly contemplated telling them everything. All of it. But knew instinctively that as things stood between her and Sebastian, it was a bad move. He asked her to trust him. Time and again, he had asked her to place her trust and faith in him. What he had never done was trusted her to think for herself. To make decisions based on what she wanted and needed. Look at how high-handedly he had casually removed her from Glendowie, despite her protestations.

Well, on that occasion, maybe he was right, Amelia acknowledged reluctantly. The prospect of staying there alone had weighed heavily upon her. But she also knew that as soon as Sebastian realised he had bedded a lady, albeit an outcast, he would push, prod and shove her into marriage. She wanted him to love her as much as she loved him. More importantly, she wanted him to marry her because he wanted to, not out of some misplaced sense of honour and duty. Sleep came slowly, and when she did succumb, her dreams were filled with Sebastian.

Later that night, Sebastian found himself standing at the foot of the bed watching her. It had been several hours since she had pleaded a headache and taken refuge in her room, yet he could still see the rivulets of tears down her pale cheeks.

Even through the gloom he knew she was crying in her sleep. His heart ached to reach out and hold her. To give her the comfort he sensed she needed. But his mind urged him to be cautious. He had learned from her revelations earlier that she had some connection with Eastleigh. Only nobody knew what. Until she trusted him enough to tell him, he couldn’t discount the possibility she knew Ballantyne far more than she was letting on.

Until he had evidence otherwise, he couldn’t even discount the horrendous possibility she was even related to Ballantyne. After all, why had he been going through Glendowie when he jumped from the carriage? Why take him to Scotland? Until he knew Amelia’s links to Ballantyne for certain, he couldn’t allow himself to be drawn by his deepening affection for her.

He had already developed deeper feelings for her than he had ever felt for any woman before. That alone disturbed him greatly. He wasn’t certain how he would deal with the possibility that she was in cohorts with Ballantyne.

With a soft curse, he turned and quickly left the room, returning to his nightly watch of the house.

He had just returned to the downstairs parlour for the third time, when the sound of shattering glass ricocheted through the still night air.

With a curse, Sebastian spun on his heel and took to the stairs, two at a time.

“What is it?” Sebastian shouted towards Dominic, who appeared at the far end of the upper hallway, still tugging on his breeches.

“I don’t know, but it was up here somewhere,” Dominic replied, turning to order Isobel out of bed. Within moments they were joined by Peter and Edward.

“Fire!” Peter shouted, tugging at Sebastian’s elbow as they raced towards Amelia’s bedroom.

“Amelia!” Sebastian shouted, pushing the door to her room open. The grey wall of smoke within immediately encased them all in its suffocating blanket. Blinking the stinging out of his eyes, Sebastian tried desperately to peer through the thick gloom towards the bed.

He could see very little through the thick fog, other than the fierce orange flames that encased the lower end of the four poster bed.

“Amelia!” he shouted, fighting the hands that held him back. “Answer me!” His voice pleaded with her, as he fought the unfamiliar panic that suffused him.

“Wait!” Peter tried to tug him back, eyeing the rapidly encroaching flames on the bed. “Use this.”

Sebastian was encased in a wet blanket and he immediately shuffled through the darkness towards the orange flames. The last time he had seen her, Amelia she had been rolled up in a thick woollen blanket. If the flames had caught her feet, she would be burned alive. The flames on the four-poster bed had already begun to hungrily consume the canopy and wooden posts.

“Amelia, darling, answer me,” Sebastian’s voice ordered as he coughed against the acrid burning in his throat. It seemed to take forever to reach her. Eventually, reassured by the feel of Peter’s hand at the back of his shirt waiting to guide him back towards the door, he reached her.

“Get her off the bed!” Peter growled as the four poster made a sudden cracking sound. “NOW!”

Within seconds of lifting her into his arms, Sebastian found himself practically yanked off his feet as he was dragged towards the door. The spot he had been standing on seconds before was now covered in the burning canopy.

He was vaguely aware of Dominic and Edward racing past him with buckets, before the soft hiss of flames being extinguished was deadened by the thickening of the smoke around them.

“Downstairs,” Isobel cried, as soon as she saw Sebastian sta

gger into the hallway, an unconscious Amelia in his arms. “We need to get her into cleaner air.”

Without hesitation, Sebastian ran down the stairs, pausing only when they reached the drawing room. Reluctantly, he set his precious burden down on the plush chaise.

“Leave her with me, she will be fine,” Isobel ordered, pushing Sebastian to one side to ease aside the blanket.

“She isn’t moving,” Sebastian choked around a cough, as he eyed the unresponsive face of the woman he loved.

“She has a lump on her head. See?” Isobel lifted a small clump of hair off Amelia’s head to reveal the growing lump on her temple. “She will have a headache when she comes round.”

Isobel had never seen Sebastian so upset, and tried hard to offer the man reassurance. Despite her own nagging worries.